Scientists have determined that the crust of a neutron star is about 10 billion times stronger than steel. Great, sign me up, right? Coat my screen in it, make my desk out of it, and so on. Unfortunately, it seems that its great strength comes from its great density; being the next densest thing after black holes (and CrunchGear Editor John Biggs), the amount it would take to make a desk would probably throw off the Earth’s orbit.
We just thought you guys should know.
You guys crack me up :)
If you think outside the box for a bit, it would be possible to utilize these properties. Of course you could make a desk from it, you would just have to make the desk out of thinner slices, making more room in the desk or making a smaller profile desk to perform the same product of work. another thought would be much thinner armor plating for military vehicles, and combat suits. again the selling point here would be the slim profile of the armor plating. Now the only thing we have to do is get a sawblade or grinder strong enough to cut this stuff in thin enough sheets. sounds like this could get expensive really quick. not to mention actually harvesting the minerals… “sorry were out of stock of the super uber thin metal plates, still wating on nasa to get back with the next shipment, it will be about 8 to 10 years.”
Wouldn’t work. Without the intense gravitational fields, degeneracy pressures would reassert themselves, and the neutrons would rapidly decay into electrons and protons, not to mention simply fall apart at the seams. You’d be bathed by vast quantities of beta, neutron, and gamma radiation as the matter simply degenerated.
You might have a hard time harvesting this stuff.
“a teaspoonful of neutron star matter would weigh about 100 million tons”
not to mention the force of gravity on the surface of the star would easily destroy the atoms of anything it encountered
Sounds like dark matter, from futurama.